364 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LV, No. 1423 



service should somewliat relax. It is important 

 to remember that the situation is if anything 

 to-day more critical than ever, and that the 

 year 1922 will probably determine whether 

 Vienna shall survive or perish as a center of 

 intellectual and artistic life. I am therefore 

 venturing to ask if you will not print the en- 

 closed extracts from a letter just received from 

 Miss Hilda Clark of the Friends Relief Mis- 

 sion, who has just returned to Vienna after a 

 visit to the United States. I have personally 

 no connection with the Friends Service Com- 

 mittee but I admired the work they were doing 

 in Vienna beyond measure and I can assure 

 the readers of Science that gifts of money or 

 of clothing sent to the American Friends 

 Service Committee, 20 South 12th Street, Phil- 

 adelphia, for the use of the professional men 

 and women of Vienna will accomplish a service 

 of unique value for humanity and civilization. 



C.-E. A. WiNSLOW 

 Yale UNrvEBSiTT, 

 Febeuaet 3, 1922 



EXTRACTS FROM MISS CLARK'S LETTER 

 I am interested to find, on getting back here, 

 that the worst effects of the financial collapse of 

 last autumn have not yet begun to show, at any 

 rate, among the majority of the working-class 

 population. Unfortunately, the reason for this is 

 one which no one dares to think can be more than 

 temporary. It is, that wages have boldly been 

 put up, and in many trades, have almost risen to 

 follow the increased cost of living so that people 

 are actually better off than they were two years 

 ago. 



This applies particularly to food. The situa- 

 tion in regard to clothing is rather curious. Even 

 in those trades where the rise in wages has been 

 greatest, the fluctuation in prices is so uncertain 

 that any article of clothing, for which it is neces- 

 sary to save from week to week, is likely by the 

 time the necessary money to buy it has been 

 saved, to have doubled in price. You will see 

 what a strong discouragement this is to people 

 to save, and how impossible they feel it. Really, 

 the home maker is in much the same diffi- 

 culty as the manufacturer, and the working 

 man or woman has not always the intelligence to 

 cope with it. This tends to make people, espe- 

 cially, of course, the more thoughtless, even if 

 earning the best wages, spend their money on 



food each week, rather than save it for clothing. 

 I do not think anybody would quite understand 

 and sympathize with them who has not been, to 

 some extent, in the same position. 



Fortunately, the expenditure on food does, after 

 all, help to restore the physique of the workmen, 

 which had got so very much undermined before 

 this rise in wages took place, but it creates a 

 great deal of misapprehension on the part of 

 social observers in the town whose first idea is 

 that the working people are much better off than 

 they reaUy are. 



This would not matter, were it not that there 

 appears to be no hope at all that the present 

 wage level can be maintained without causing a 

 great increase in unemployment. It is not 

 thought that industry can stand the present cost 

 of production, as Austria has only obtained her 

 markets, during the past year, by being able to 

 undercut other manufacturers. It seems inevita- 

 ble that she will go through the same phase of 

 unemployment as has occurred in other countries. 

 To meet this, she has at present absolutely no 

 resources except a very uncertain amount of 

 savings made by the most successful of the war- 

 profiteers. 



Perhaps one should add to her assets the extra- 

 ordinary courage and grit a great proportion of 

 the people are showing, and the energy with 

 which they are turning to the increase of their 

 home food production. Unfortunately, a good 

 deal of capital is required to carry this out to a 

 sufficient extent to enable her to tide over an 

 industrial crisis, but the amount of capital needed 

 is very much lessened by the energy and hard 

 work which the men themselves are giving. 



First of all, they have increased the allotment 

 garden production, and having nearly all the 

 land that can possibly be reached by the people 

 living in the present houses in Vienna, they are 

 moving out to live in the country close to, and 

 building houses with their own hands to live in 

 while they cultivate the land. In this way, their 

 labor is not withdrawn from the industries which 

 are still working, and if there is temporary un- 

 employment, they will be ready to return when 

 conditions improve. 



I think it is important that people should 

 realize that to provide capital for this increase of 

 the home food production is the only way of 

 averting absolute starvation if unemployment on 

 a large scale should occur, even if this were only 

 temporary. There is no reason to suppose that 

 industry here could not recover directly condi- 



